Revelation 18:21-24 is the final picture of the sorrowful loss of culture, community, and purpose made possible through our shared life together.
Verse 21 starts with an angel throwing a boulder into the sea and exclaiming:
Heaved and sunk, the great city Babylon, sunk in the sea, not a sign of her ever again. (Re 18:21, MSG).
It was a performative act, rich with imagery and history. To understand its meaning, we need to think biblically, which is not a particularly helpful term, but I use it in a sense that implies there is a mindset that our Bible characters had that, if we want to read their writings for all they are worth, we need to adopt as well.
For starters, the community in which the Hebrew Bible arose was comprised of semi-nomadic desert-dwelling people. They weren’t like the Phoenicians or their descendants in Carthage, who were masters of the sea. No. Evidence throughout scripture points to the idea that they had a tentative or even fearful relationship with the sea.
The sea for them was the abyss, the home of demons and devils, and it seems that every time one of God's people in either the Old or New Testament tangled with the sea, they ended up in a storm (Matt 8:23), nearly drowning, or shipwrecked (Acts 27). Demon-possessed pigs plunge into the sea in the presence of Jesus (Matt 8) as if going home. When Jesus walks on the sea, they confuse him for a ghost (Matt 14:26). And when the Beast emerges, you guessed it, it comes from the Sea (Rev 13).
So when the angel throws the stone into the sea as a sign of what is to come of Babylon, he sends Babylon back into the abyss from whence she came.
But the loss that occurs when Babylon is finally toppled is not simply a loss of all things pejorative but also all of the things that make life wonderful. Let’s look at verses 22-24:
Silent the music of harpists and singers—
you’ll never hear flutes and trumpets again.
Artisans of every kind—gone;
you’ll never see their likes again.
The voice of a millstone grinding falls dumb;
you’ll never hear that sound again.
The light from lamps, never again;
never again laughter of bride and groom.
Her traders robbed the whole earth blind,
and by black-magic arts deceived the nations.
The only thing left of Babylon is blood—the blood of saints and prophets,
the murdered and the martyred.
The Message (Re 18:22–24). NavPress.
Music, small businesses, weddings, art, culture—all of the things that humans contribute beautifully to God’s creative world.
God cares about these parts of our lives, his desire is that we sing and dance and glory in the works of his hands by ordering and enjoying them. My favorite passage in the Old Testament is from Ecclesiastes 9, which states:
Seize life! Eat bread with gusto,
Drink wine with a robust heart.
Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure!
Dress festively every morning.
Don’t skimp on colors and scarves.
Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God’s gift. It’s all you get in exchange
For the hard work of staying alive.
Make the most of each one!
The Message (Ec 9:7–9).
When we seek the things of the flesh, power, wealth, status, etc., we rarely start by thinking about what we might lose in the process. When evil falls, goodness often goes with it.
When we embody the Lamb, we are loving society at large.
When we resist the temptation of coercive power, we work for thriving neighborhoods.
When we resist the temptation to stockpile wealth, we promote the flourishing of life around us.
You are not robbing yourself of joy; you are proliferating goodness for others.
May we embody the Lamb this week so that others might receive the day as a gift from God.